My partner and I often joke as we shop for plants, ‘oh, we like that, but do you have 25 of them…’ Garden center employees think we’re kidding or give us a strange look and move on to the next customer. Truth is, most retail outlets don’t often carry that many of a kind unless the plants are tiny. We’re really not joking though– big properties call for big plantings.
To accommodate the large expanses, we practice planting en masse. That simply means we try to plant masses of the same plant to create a bold statement- one that stands up to the house and property. It’s a hard thing to get used to because it means we often have to wait awhile until we can acquire large quantities of like plants. It’s getting easier though. Gardening does teach patience!
Recently, I created a mass planting of Heuchera ‘Plum Pudding’ in a shade bed. It’s the same bed that I removed all the horrible clay soil from last year (See Conquering Clay Soil). I planted very few things last year to allow the new soil to rest and settle over winter. We had purchased 8 Plum Puddings last year and planted them as a test. They came back beautifully and now it was time to fill in the space bordered by Hosta ‘Blue Angel’ and Liriope muscari ‘Variegata.’
The Heuchera color and form contrasts with the variegated Liriope. The ‘plum’ color is echoed in other plants within the same bed.
The first step involved placement of the 33 new plants. In summer, the Liriope plants will touch each other and spill over to hide the black edging.
I encountered many earthworms as I dug the holes. That’s a great sign! The soil is healthy and loamy. I needed only a hand trowel to create the holes.
By fall, the Heuchera plants should mature and begin to make their statement. And by next spring, that statement will hopefully have an exclamation point. You get a sense of the desired effect when you look at the few Heuchera which were planted last year (far right).
Plantingen masse has many benefits in garden design. It need not be limited to large gardens only. It can have a calming and unifying effect on any garden. It seerves to connect and ease the transition from one area to another. Try to avoid the ‘one of everything’ approach, which can fatigue the eye. Last, masses can visually enlarge even the smallest of gardens. The repetition of form, texture, and color encourages the eye to never stop in one spot, but slowly flow through, creating the illusion of a bigger space.
To close, here are a few examples of how mass plantings work and enhance garden spaces.
